Amnesties, Commutations, and Pardons

News about Amnesties, Commutations, and Pardons, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Jul. 31, 2015

More than 150 Chinese citizens sentenced to life in prison for illegal logging in Myanmar are suddenly released as part of broader amnesty. MORE

Jul. 14, 2015

Pres Obama commutes sentences of 46 drug offenders, bringing total number of commutations for nonviolent offenders during his time in office to 89; moves comes before Obama's planned speech to NAACP in Philadelphia, where he plans to outline proposals for revamping juvenile and criminal justice systems, including sentencing guidelines. MORE

Jul. 4, 2015

Pres Obama is set to use his powers of clemency to free dozens of inmates imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses, part of effort to ameliorate sentencing excesses of past and their effect on young black and Hispanic men; effort, which has broad bipartisan support, faces challenges in bureaucracy, political risks and large number of inmates who have applied for pardons. MORE

Apr. 2, 2015

Editorial welcomes letters from Pres Obama commuting prolonged sentences for 22 nonviolent drug offenders in federal prisons throughout country; positions letters within Justice Dept's broader effort to identify and encourage nonviolent inmates to apply for clemency; holds while pardons are good step, more must be done for thousands who languish unnecessarily in overcrowded prisons, and to curb unjustly long sentences that are used to intimidate defendants into pleading guilty. MORE

Mar. 17, 2015

Henry L McCollum of Fayetteville, NC, and his half-brother Leon Brown, who were released from prison in 2014 after DNA evidence exonerated them in 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old girl, have not as yet received pardons from Gov Pat McCrory; without pardons, men have lived minimal lives, without substantive remuneration, counseling or public assistance in adapting back to society. MORE

Jan. 18, 2015

Frank Bruni Op-Ed column expresses hope that actor Mark Wahlberg's pardon application for crimes committed during his youth will lead to broader discussion about way society treats people who have been punished for their crimes; suggests that Wahlberg, should he get his pardon, would be seen by the less advantaged as yet another rich, white famous person who receives special treatment. MORE

Jan. 1, 2015

Maryland Gov Martin O'Malley announces he will commute death sentences of Heath Burch, Vernon Evans Jr, Anthony Grandison and Jody Lee Miles, who will instead be imprisoned for life without possibility of parole; four are the last inmates on death row in Maryland, and announcement comes almost 20 months after state abolished capital punishment. MORE

Jan. 1, 2015

New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo says he has pardoned Antonio Argibay and Alvaro Khalil Cumberbatch, saying men deserve second chance; granting of pardons marks second time Cuomo has exercised his clemency since taking office in 2011. MORE

Dec. 9, 2014

Op-Ed article by American Civil Liberties Union Dir Anthony D Romero reluctantly calls on Pres Obama to pardon former Pres George W Bush and other senior officials who planned and authorized the United States torture program; notes Obama seems reluctant to pursue prosecution, and statute of limitations has run out on many who were accountable; says pardons make clear that crimes were committed, and that may be the only way to ensure the American government never tortures again. MORE

Nov. 14, 2014

Arkansas Gov Mike Beebe, before leaving office in January 2015, plans to issue pardon to his son Kyle, who was convicted of felony drug offense in 2003. MORE

Aug. 19, 2014

Editorial observes Pres Obama, who has granted only 62 clemency petitions, is the least merciful president in modern history; maintains federal pardon policy must become more transparent and must be applied more frequently; calls for overhaul of clemency process that would involve taking it out of the hands of the Justice Department and establishing an independent commission to make informed recommendations directly to the president. MORE

Jun. 10, 2014

Syrian Pres Bashar al-Assad issues decree granting general amnesty for all crimes except 'acts of terrorism,' raising tentative hopes among Syrians with relatives in detention. MORE

Jun. 4, 2014

Dan Barry This Land column focuses on plight of Eric Pizer, former Marine in Wisconsin who is seeking a pardon from Gov Scott Walker for his felony conviction in 2004 for punching Steven Frazier and breaking his nose; Pizer is blocked from his desired law enforcement career because of the blemish on his record. MORE

Apr. 24, 2014

Justice Department plans to canvass entire federal prison population to find inmates who committed low-level crimes and could be released early, in Obama administration's latest break from criminal justice policies created to fight drugs; nonviolent felons will be eligible if they have served 10 years in prison and would have received significantly lower sentences under current laws; move is expected to generate thousands of requests for clemency. MORE

Apr. 24, 2014

Editorial supports Justice Department's clemency reforms that deal with incarcerations related to war on drugs; applauds new standards covering inmates who have served at least 10 years of sentence that will be shorter in 2014 due to law changes; holds standards signal encouraging changes in clemency process and in clemency governance; urges Pres Obama to make use of new standards by issuing pardons. MORE

Apr. 18, 2014

Editorial contends Pres Obama was right to use his clemency power to help Ceasar Huerta Cantu, who was wrongly sentenced to three and half extra years in federal prison due to a typo on his pre-sentencing report; criticizes Justice Dept for fighting Cantu's request to have his sentence corrected in the first place, citing resistance as absurd. MORE

Apr. 16, 2014

Pres Obama, in rare use of his clemency powers, commutes prison sentence of federal inmate Ceasar Huerta Cantu, who had been consigned to prison an extra three and a half years that he was not supposed to serve because of a typographical error; president's action comes as he and his administration are rethinking sentencing rules and the use of his commutation power. MORE

Apr. 4, 2014

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denies request for a posthumous pardon for Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 after being convicted of setting his house on fire and killing his three daughters. MORE

Feb. 24, 2014

Bill Keller Op-Ed column examines how Pres Obama has lived up to the high expectations that he would reform the broken criminal justice system; contends that so far, the Obama administration has been unimpressive on the issue; expresses hope that the administration will do more in the remaining years of Obama's presidency. MORE

Feb. 11, 2014

Michael Powell Gotham column observes that New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo has seemingly ignored extraordinary power of clemency during his tenure; shares story of Judith Clark, who has served 33 years in prison for violent crime she fully acknowledges; holds story of her volunteer work while incarcerated is unavoidably moving, and that she is one of the people for whom mercy is precisely the point. MORE

Feb. 10, 2014

Editorial calls for wholesale reform of the Justice Department's pardon office, which has proved itself ineffective and incompetent; urges Pres Obama to restructure the screening process for clemency applications so that he receives unbiased information to exercise fully the power to grant clemency. MORE

Jan. 31, 2014

Justice Department asks defense lawyers to help government locate prisoners who were sentenced under drug laws during days of national crack epidemic, and encourage them to apply for clemency; drive is part of Obama administration's effort to curtail severe penalties in low-level drug cases and undo a disparity that flooded the nation's prison system, disproportionately affecting black men. MORE

Jan. 24, 2014

Russian Supreme Court rules that Platon A Lebedev, business partner of former oil tycoon Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, should be released from prison; Khodorkovsky was pardoned and released from prison in December 2013. MORE

Jan. 4, 2014

Editorial accuses New York Gov Andrew Cuomo of miserly caution in exercising his clemency power, noting his decision to pardon first three men since taking office in 2011; contends part of the problem is state's opaque and unpredictable clemency process. MORE

Jan. 1, 2014

New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo issues pardons, first of his term, to Seymour Hunter and Gerardo Alvarez, who were convicted of drug offenses in 1994 and 2002; also pardons Rocco Paciello, who was convicted of statutory rape in 1988. MORE

Dec. 25, 2013

Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, former oil tycoon and political opponent of Vladimir V Putin, applies for a three-month Swiss visa just four days after his release from a Russian prison, which will allow him to travel to 26 nations around Europe. MORE

Dec. 24, 2013

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot are released from prison under a new amnesty law; women immediately seize on their sudden freedom to accuse Pres Vladimir V Putin of using the justice system to bolster his image before the Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi. MORE

Dec. 23, 2013

Editorial praises Pres Obama's decision to commute outrageously long drug sentences of eight men and women; contends move highlights the injustice being done to thousands of prisoners under federal sentencing laws; urges Obama to do more to lessen the impact of the broken criminal justice system on those who have been most unfairly punished by it. MORE

Dec. 23, 2013

Serge Schmemann Editorial Observer describes meeting with Mikhail Khodorkovsky 36 hours after Russian Pres Vladimir Putin released him by presidential decree; notes Khodorkovsky says Russia's problem is that a majority of its citizens do not understand that they must take responsibility for their own fate. MORE

Dec. 22, 2013

Dan Barry This Land column highlights Jesse Webster, former cocaine dealer from Chicago who was sentenced to life without parole in 1996 during a period when guidelines demanded harsh terms; he is among estimated 2,000 federal inmates serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses; Webster has petitioned Pres Obama for executive clemency, a long shot that represents his only hope of release. MORE

Dec. 21, 2013

Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, is released from penal colony after serving 10 years time for embezzlement, following Pres Vladimir Putin's signing of decree pardoning him for his crimes; Putin's reasons for releasing Khodorkovsky remain unclear. MORE

Dec. 20, 2013

Pres Obama, expanding his push to curtail severe penalties in drug cases, commutes sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses; each inmate has been imprisoned for at least 15 years, and six were serving life sentences; Obama says each had been sentenced under what is now recognized as an 'unfair system.' MORE

Dec. 20, 2013

Russian Pres Vladimir V Putin says Mikhail B Khodorkovsky, former oil tycoon and aspiring political rival, could soon be freed from prison; move is unexpected and a striking reversal of Putin's authoritarian rule, and many see it as an attempt to quiet critics before the Winter Olympics. MORE

Dec. 20, 2013

Editorial contends Russian Pres Vladimir Putin's move to decree clemency for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, two members of band Pussy Riot and Greenpeace activists is not the same as acknowledging that these prisoners were improperly incarcerated to begin with; holds amnesties will remain an imperial gesture unless they are followed by a strengthening of the rule of law. MORE

Dec. 19, 2013

Russian Parliament's lower house passes amnesty bill that seems to promise freedom for defendants in some of country's most politically charged cases; two jailed members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot and the 30 Greenpeace demonstrators arrested at an Arctic offshore oil rig appeared to be among those likely to receive amnesty. MORE

Nov. 22, 2013

Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles votes unanimously to posthumously pardon Haywood Patterson, Charles Weems and Andy Wright, three black men who were falsely accused and wrongly convicted in rapes of a pair of white women in 1930s; case, which led to two landmark Supreme Court opinions, has continued to hang over Alabama as an enduring mark of shame. MORE

Nov. 4, 2013

Thai government is facing growing anger among its own supporters as well as protests by an emboldened opposition over far-reaching amnesty bill that could allow former Prime Min Thaksin Shinawatra to return home; bill, which would wipe clean corruption cases against him, easily passes one house of bicameral Parliament. MORE

Oct. 13, 2013

Former Pres George W Bush and former Vice Pres Dick Cheney shared a close partnership until scandal involving I Lewis Libby, who had leaked report that Valerie Plame Wilson was a Central Intelligence Agency official; Bush, suspecting Cheney was involved, refused to grant Libby full presidential pardon. MORE

Aug. 22, 2013

Editorial observes the use of executive clemency has been declining for decades; criticizes Pres Obama for his limited use of pardon power, despite his promises to reform the criminal justice system; contends any meaningful reform of the criminal justice system must include the clemency process, by which the most punitive tendencies of the system are tempered. MORE

Aug. 9, 2013

Russian Pres Vladimir V Putin plans to offer amnesty to some of the country's imprisoned business people as way of stimulating Russia's languishing economy; argues that releasing some businessmen, who were over-prosecuted during Putin's first 12 years in power, would help revive the economy. MORE

Jun. 27, 2013

Marc Rich, shrewd oil trader who fled to Switzerland after being indicted on charges of widespread tax evasion, and who was later pardoned by Pres Bill Clinton in one of most debated White House pardons in decades, dies at age 78. MORE

May. 18, 2013

Myanmar's Pres Thein Sein pardons at least 20 political prisoners, just ahead of state visit to the United States; more releases are expected. MORE

May. 8, 2013

Ireland's govermnent says it will pardon nearly 5,000 men who deserted country's armed forces to fight for Britain during World War II; Ireland was neutral during war. MORE

Apr. 24, 2013

President Thein Sein of Myanmar grants amnesty to about 100 prisoners, 56 of whom are political detainees; release is latest in series of amnesties declared by Thein Sein and comes day after European Union lifted all sanctions on country. MORE

Apr. 5, 2013

Alabama lawmakers vote to issue posthumous pardons to nine black teenagers, known as the Scottsboro Boys, who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women more than 80 years ago based on false accusations. MORE

Mar. 16, 2013

United States Embassy in Nigeria criticizes pardoning of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former governor who was convicted of corruption, in Twitter message, which is picked up by Nigerian media; criticism fuels growing fracas over pardon. MORE

Mar. 5, 2013

Editorial criticizes Pres Obama for timid use of his power to grant pardons; contends that 17 people pardoned by Obama are step in right direction, but also served to highlight his woeful clemency record. MORE

Mar. 2, 2013

Pres Obama issues pardons to 17 convicted felons, making first use of his clemency powers in his second term; offenses were largely small-scale crimes many years ago, and 12 of the people had not been sentenced to serve time in prison. MORE

Feb. 28, 2013

Opponents of Czech Republic Pres Vaclav Klaus, who will step down on March 7 at end of his second five-year term, are trying to press charges of high treason against him over his granting of amnesty to dozens of people accused of corruption. MORE

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